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Create a supply chain control tower in the high tech industry.

Overview

A supply chain control tower is a shared service capability that monitors and directs activities across the end-to-end supply chain to make it collaborative, aligned, agile and demand-driven. A control tower acts as a centralized hub that uses real-time data from a company’s existing, integrated data management and transactional systems to integrate processes and tools across the end-to-end supply chain and drive business outcomes.

Supply chain executives in high-tech are facing unprecedented challenges in managing highly complex supply chains and addressing the volatility of a global business environment. The difficulties of managing the supply chain in these circumstances continue to affect companies’ financials significantly.

In addition, executives face new demands to make the supply chain more profitable, nimble and flexible; to manage security and risks; to meet increasing customer needs; and to support growth opportunities.

A control tower can act as a centralized hub that uses real-time data from a company’s existing, integrated data management and transactional systems to integrate processes and tools across the end-to-end supply chain and drive business outcomes.

Recommendations

Implementation of a supply chain control tower is a five-phase journey as organizations move toward a demand-driven, end-to-end value network. Supply chain leaders can decide to implement some of these phases to achieve fast, interim results, or plan for a multi-year journey of change.

Phase 1: Visibility

This phase focuses on reactive fixes, providing visibility to events with minimal disruption to day-to-day operations.

Phase 2: Integration

Teams create projects to integrate processes and information technology. This is a stage where driving functional excellence can be balanced with trade-offs.

Phase 3: Performance Monitoring

As the transition is made to phase 3, the control tower enables cross-functional decision making, the development of basic “what-if” analytics, and management of functional key performance indicators. This is where an organization can design the supply chain with dynamic business modeling. In an environment where everything is changing rapidly, different supply chain segments need completely different treatment that brings solutions to the operational level.

Phase 4: Horizontal Process

As projects are executed and completed, phase 4 begins and the control tower becomes an end-to-end, demand driven supply chain process moving from managing vertical function silos to horizontal processes. The design of a long-term supply chain and business design with a gradual approach to implementation drives end-to-end process excellence and allows visibility into process outcome key performance indicators.

Phase 5: Synchronized Network

In the final phase, an organization has achieved a synchronized, demand driven value network. At this stage, there is continuous assessment of value at the activity level and across the organization. Complex analytics can be conducted to optimize value and the business is able to manage business value and profitability.

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